January 1, Knife-Wielding Attacker Forces Fatal Showdown on Brooklyn Bridge

Wyatt’s Take

• Two knife attacks in one week prove New York City remains a dangerous place for regular folks just trying to live their lives.
• Mentally unstable individuals are openly threatening police and innocent bystanders while city leaders struggle to keep the streets safe.
• Working families in the heartland see the same pattern of chaos and wonder why law-abiding citizens pay the price for failed policies.

Police were forced to confront and kill a knife-wielding maniac in New York City on Friday, just days after a different maniac went on a stabbing rampage, killing one person and wounding another in Times Square.

The man was first seen walking on the Brooklyn Bridge cables around 3:30 a.m., and responding officers scaled the bridge to try to convince him to come down to safety, according to NYPD’s Emergency Services Unit (ESU) Assistant Chief Gerard Dowling. This led to a standoff during which the man lunged at them and made threatening statements.

“He stated, ‘I want to die, I want you to kill me, I have a bomb, you’re not going to make me do something bad to the cops,’” Dowling told reporters.

Officers urged the man to drop his weapon and come down, attempting to reason with him for nearly one hour. Eventually, the knife-wielding man began to descend the cables and lunged at one of the officers when he was within three feet of him.

“At that point, a member of ESU who was on the roadbed of the bridge discharged his weapon one time, striking the man,” Dowling said.

The man was rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. All Brooklyn-bound lanes of the bridge were then shut down for peak hours of the Friday morning commute.

This incident was preceded by another knife attack in New York City on Monday. Erin Piacenti, a young wife and new mother who had just returned from maternity leave to her VP position at Bank of America, was stabbed and killed by a mentally disturbed woman. Another unidentified man was also injured and taken to the hospital. He was released from the hospital on Tuesday.

Police fatally shot the attacker, 49-year-old Pamela Cisneros, who was armed with two kitchen knives.

Cisneros, from Queens, had previous outbursts related to her mental state, according to NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch. She refused repeated commands to drop the knives when officers confronted her near an NYPD substation.

“During the encounter, she told the officers, ‘I’m not dropping anything. I would rather kill both of you.’ She repeated, ‘I will kill you,’” Tisch said during a press briefing.

Several weeks before that, there was another stabbing near Times Square in which a man was stabbed in the head during an argument inside a subway station.

Wyatt Matters

Heartland families understand that protecting their loved ones starts with strong law enforcement and clear consequences for those who choose violence over the rule of law.